Melissa Young, Trump

Melissa Young is onetime Miss Wisconsin. Gravely ill, dying, she delivered an emotional statement of gratitude to Trump for something he did that lifted her spirit at a critical time. She appeared at the town hall to say this when he showed up in Wisconsin for his campaign.

I caught this moment by chance on YouTube. I didn't see much, but I did see this.  The comments picked up and spun by far too fast to read. Women cried. A lot. Others commenters were using emoji symbols of bricks to form walls, A wall being their comment. A lot of energized nonsense.

Comments to this Daily Mail piece are uncharacteristically compassionate and reasonable. Women say they cried. 

Antitrumpites recall a story about ghost of Trump Past denying, some say withdrawing, his own nephew's medication or healthcare or insurance or pulled the plug on his life support, depending on the version. 

"Petition to Pardon Making a Murderer Subject Gets 100,000 Signatures"

Time: Tens of thousands of people are petitioning for the president to pardon Steven Avery, the subject of Netflix’s documentary series Making a Murderer, who is serving life in prison after a 2005 murder arrest.

So far, more than 100,000 have signed a Change.org petition and more than 18,000 have signed a White House petition asking for a presidential pardon for Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey. If the government petition collects 100,000 signatures by January 16, then the White House has to respond publicly.

Making a Murderer explores how Avery was convicted for murder in Wisconsin. He had been released from prison in 2003 because DNA evidence had exonerated him in rape charges. Netflix released the popular 10-part series on Dec. 18.

The documentary series comes after other popular true crime stories, such as HBO’s The Jinx and the Serial podcast. But unlike Serial, in which Sarah Koenig couldn’t come to a conclusion about Adnan Syed’s guilt, and The Jinx, which the filmmakers ended with Robert Durst’s seeming confession,reviewers say Making a Murderer comes down on the side of Avery’s innocence. Prosecutor Ken Kratz says the series leaves out pertinent information that proves Avery is guilty.

Skillet Creek in Pewits Nest, Wisconsin

"Wisconsin Might Destroy Tenure For Professors"

"The Wisconsin legislature’s Joint Finance Committee voted 12-4 Friday to approve a proposal that would eliminate tenure from state law and allow tenured faculty to be laid off even if a school isn’t in a declared financial emergency. The proposal would also weaken faculty influence in setting policy and would cut the University of Wisconsin (UW)’s budget by $250 million over the next two years, down from a $300 million cut that was proposed by Walker."

The elimination of tenure protections was first suggested by Walker back in February, but was considered a longshot proposal. The Joint Finance Committee, however, is tremendously influential, and its decision to send the rollback to the floor of the legislature is seen as making passage much more likely.

By itself, the measure wouldn’t end tenure, but it would remove the current protections it has under state law and allow universities to set their own policies on the matter.

Intapundit writes...

UW faculty are fighting mad. I have mixed feelings about this, and it’s not because I have tenure (which I do). Undoubtedly, tenure inherently creates some “dead wood”–faculty that slack off and lose interest in their jobs once they know they have a presumptive job for life. And it would be nice to have a higher education system that reflects a real world ethos of rewarding excellence and punishing lethargy–among faculty, staff and administrators.

On the other hand, the original justification for tenure in higher education (and notice that this emphatically does not apply to lower education, where elementary, middle school and high school teachers do not undertake scholarship as part of their job) is that the job does generally require and involve scholarship, and sometimes that scholarship is politically controversial. Tenure was designed to ensure that scholars could feel free to express their views, without fear of retribution based on viewpoint discrimination. And frankly, it’s conservative professors who need this protection the most, as they are inherently swimming in a sea of progressive colleagues/deans/administrators/sharks who would be tempted to “punish” conservative scholarly viewpoints and activities. These concerns potentially could be allayed with robust statutory protections against viewpoint discrimination, but this encourage expensive litigation whenever a faculty member is fired. Whether these costs would outweigh the benefits isn’t as clear as it may seem initially.

In any event, the Wisconsin legislature’s proposal represents a thoughtful beginning to an important discussion about what tenure means, and when it is needed (if ever).

"Supreme Court blocks Wisconsin's voter ID law"

"The Supreme Court on Thursday night blocked Wisconsin from implementing its new voter identification law on the eve of next month's elections."

"In a related action, a district court judge in Texas ruled that state's voter ID law is racially discriminatory and violates the Voting Rights Act. The state attorney general's office said it would appeal."

via Instapundit who says the "margin of fraud" just expanded.

Happy Syttende Mai!

Do they still celebrate Syttende Mai in Stoughton, Wisconsin? They did when I was kid growing up in nearby Middleton, WI. We had our own summertime festival called "The Good Neighbor Festival, " always around the last weekend of summer.  Other small communities had theirs too: Sun Prairie had their "Corn Festival." Waunakee had something called "Volksfest," but that went away. Now I understand they celebrate "Wauktober Fest"? Perhaps Titus can enlighten us. Jefferson, WI had "Gemuetlickeit Days;"  Madison had "May Day" (I kid).

The names suggest a strong European influence which I think is waning fast.

Do people do these kinds of things outside of Wisconsin?

Quashing Conservative Political Speech In Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a politically schizophrenic state.  It is equal parts liberal and conservative, with a tiny moderate segment that can move election outcomes in either direction.  Sometimes it has Democrat leadership; sometimes Republican.  The carving to take the statehouse is like fruit on a tree for the hungry party that is out of power.

As you witnessed during the unsuccessful campaign to recall Governor Scott Walker, the progressive left is unhinged by Walker.  They have stopped at nothing in their attempts to thwart laws Walker has signed, and to defeat him in regular elections and a recall election.  Their behavior has been contemptible.

And it's starting again. 

In October Mary Burke, a Trek Bicycle heiress with no political experience and plenty of money, announced that she is running for Governor against Scott Walker in the 2014 election.  Two days later, as if on cue a secret John Doe investigation into Walker's 2012 campaign was started by Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf. 

ADA Landgraf proudly displayed a "Recall Walker" sign at his residence during the 2012 recall campaign, and signed a petition urging Walker's recall.  He also headed a "secret John Doe" investigation intended to find crimes Walker committed.  There were none.

Landgraf is a political hack.  His new inquiry is nothing more than an attempt to suppress free speech on the part of conservative political groups through intimidation, harassment and seizure of those groups' computers and emails.

This is nothing short of opposition research being done by the government to benefit the candidate of the Democrat party in her bid to unseat the governor.  It is one-party fascism.

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article about it here.

Copies of two subpoenas we've seen demand "all memoranda, email . . . correspondence, and communications" both internally and between the subpoena target and some 29 conservative groups, including Wisconsin and national nonprofits, political vendors and party committees. The groups include the League of American Voters, Wisconsin Family Action, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, Americans for Prosperity—Wisconsin, American Crossroads, the Republican Governors Association, Friends of Scott Walker and the Republican Party of Wisconsin.

One subpoena also demands "all records of income received, including fundraising information and the identity of persons contributing to the corporation." In other words, tell us who your donors are.

The investigation and the subpoenas do not name a specific crime that is being investigated.  They are a fishing expedition.  Give us everything we want so we can investigate every bit of it and look for anything even remotely criminal to charge you with.  And you may not talk about this.

The subpoenas don't spell out a specific allegation, but the demands suggest the government may be pursuing a theory of illegal campaign coordination by independent groups during the recall elections. If prosecutors are pursuing a theory that independent conservative groups coordinated with candidate campaigns during the recall, their goal may be to transform the independent expenditures into candidate committees after the fact, requiring revision of campaign-finance disclosures and possible criminal charges.

Remember the Cincinnati IRS?  There has been no punishment for the government employees who used IRS authority to harass and intimidate conservative political groups in an attempt to suppress conservative voter turnout.  The same thing is happening in Wisconsin.

The left cannot win public office without using corruption.